Leadership Success Tip:

Leadership success is often the result of self-motivation. Energy comes from being motivated ... so does confidence. If you act with confidence, you exude authority. People will take for granted that you have the authority to lead and will react accordingly.

Overcoming Shyness to Become a Business Leader

"Don't let timidity stop you from being an excellent leader. Get over your shyness and get your company on the path to success."

People skills are so important in management, whether you are managing a business or a community organisation. As usual Stever Robbins has the problem and its solution in a nutshell ...

"Q: I am very shy, but very ambitious. I started a company and am up to four employees. I spend much of my time in my office because it makes me uncomfortable to spend too much time being social and having meaningless conversations. I don't think this is a good character trait. How can I become more comfortable around people?
A: Bravo for addressing this now! As your company grows, people will look to you for leadership. Literally. They'll watch how you act on a day-to-day basis and will adjust their tone accordingly. Conversation from the boss, even if it's idle chit-chat, isn't meaningless. It creates culture and lets people know how to respond.

Here's one thing I can guarantee: If you stay in your office, they won't think you're shy." Read the whole article

Two lists for success in your Team Meetings

Ensuring the success of a team meeting can be difficult. Different personalities, different viewpoints, and different agendas all exist and all have their value to a team. But to bring them together to work to effective outcomes is a challenge. Use the checklists here to ensure your team has successful meetings.

Encourage members of the team to fulfil the roles that are needed. There are two kinds of group roles that are necessary for a team meeting to succeed. Task functions ensure the work requirements are met, while maintenance functions help the group with its internal cohesion and interpersonal feelings.

Task functions:

1. Initiating: Proposing tasks or goals: defining a group problem; suggesting a procedure for solving a problem; suggesting other ideas for consideration
2. Information or opinion seeking: Requesting facts on the problem; seeking relevant information; asking for suggestions and ideas.
3. Information or opinion-giving: Offering facts; providing relevant information; stating a belief; giving suggestions or ideas
4. Clarifying or elaborating: Interpreting or reflecting ideas or suggestions; clearing up confusion; indicating alternatives and issues before the group; giving examples
5. Summarizing: Pulling related ideas together; restating suggestions after the group has discussed them
6. Consensus-testing: Sending up “Trial balloons” to see if the group is nearing a conclusion or agreement has been reached.

Maintenance Functions

1. Encouraging: Being friendly, warm and responsible to others and their contributions; listening; showing regard for others by giving them opportunity or recognition
2. Expressing group feelings: Sensing feeling, mood, relationships within the group; sharing one’s own feelings with other members
3. Harmonizing: Attempting to reconcile disagreements; reducing tension through “pouring oil on troubled waters”; getting people to explore their differences.
4. Compromising: Offering to compromise one’s position, ideas or status; admitting error; disciplining oneself to help maintain the group
5. Gate keeping: Seeing that others have a chance to speak; keeping the discussion a group discussion rather than a one-, two-, or three-way conversation.
6. Setting standards: Expressing standards that will help groups to achieve; applying standards in evaluating group functioning and production.

Choose the roles to suit your team members. They will also be able to see the effectiveness of the system and work to keep your meetings successful.

Structure your speech for Maximum Impact

“Tell them what you’re going to say. Say it. Then tell them what you said”

And that is so true!! We have such short attention spans. And so do audiences. If we want to make a point that will stay with an audience after they leave the room, we have to repeat and reinforce it throughout the presentation.

Introduce your well defined theme. Present that theme. And repeat it to conclude.

You will have given your audience a great chance of remembering it.

Learn through constructive evaluation to structure your speeches for maximum impact. Join an ITC club. Visit www.itcintl.com to find a club near you.

A Twelve Step Program For Identifying and Eliminating Organizational Change (Culture)

Read this if you would like a chuckle. Mind you, it has some excellent kernels of truth in it. It also occurs to me that we also need to know how to counteract the strategies, if we need to, as well. Click on the title.